


Ever After

by kmo



Series: Imago Salon [3]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Smut, Hair-pulling, Light BDSM, femdom bedelia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-02 23:38:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8688043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kmo/pseuds/kmo
Summary: Following the conclusion of Imago Salon & Spa, a second date for Bedelia and Hannibal brings second thoughts and a second chance.





	

It had been the kind of evening Bedelia had fantasized about for years. She, in a burgundy velvet cocktail dress, cut high to show off a wicked flash of leg. Hannibal in a dark suit and charcoal grey silk tie, hair artfully tousled. They had gone to one of Bedelia’s favorite restaurants, a Caribbean fusion bistro where every bite had been a small taste of paradise. The air outside was frigid, but the two of them had been warm inside their snug little booth, heated by their own longing and lust, an inferno that seemed unlikely to burn out anytime soon.

And now they stand in Bedelia’s foyer, just having crossed the threshold. A second after the door clicks shut behind them, Hannibal’s hands are on her mapping every curve. His lips meld with hers and she tastes the tropics, salt and rum and lime laid over something that is uniquely masculine and _him_. It is their first date together since the Port Haven gala. They’d been so very well-behaved in public—but now they are at last in private and the temptation to be naughty is very, _very_ strong.

His hands slip off her coat and his fingertips trace the outline of her zipper, leaving a burning trail along the curve of her spine until they reach the metal tab near her neck. He begins to tug it down, very slowly, but when he reaches the top of her bra strap, Bedelia feels herself go rigid, freezing into marble in his arms.

Hannibal stops and his brow knits in soft concern. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s nothing,” she lies, rather unconvincingly she knows. “Perhaps some wine?”

Hannibal shrugs off his jacket and hangs it in the hall closet. His eyes continue to watch her strangely. “If you like.”

“White, I think. I have a nice moscato already chilling, perfect for dessert,” Bedelia says, her normally cool and even tones quickened into a stacatto canter. Hannibal follows behind her silently, leaning casually up against her kitchen island as she opens the bottle and pours them both a glass.

“To a pleasant evening,” she toasts with more nervousness than cheer.

Hannibal nods his head and sips. “Is it? A pleasant evening?”

“Of course,” she replies and takes a rather generous swallow.

He crosses to her slowly, setting aside his wine glass and placing both hands on either side of her body. He looms over her with a power she finds both unnerving and exciting. “You’re afraid, Bedelia. Why?”

He’s left her unable to go anywhere, so she takes refuge in her wine, twirling the stem in her fidgety fingers. “This is all very new to me.” It’s a euphemism, but she’s reluctant to expose herself any more than she already has.

“I know,” he says. “It’s new for me, too.” His voice is rich and warm; it rumbles through her, does things to her on a chemical level she had not thought a voice could do. His index finger strokes the nape of her neck, tracing the edge of her hairline in a way that makes her knees melt with longing. It’s a strange feeling for her, being weak with desire for someone. She’s not a fan of weakness, no matter how pleasurable.

“I was under the impression that your bed has rarely been empty for long,” she says dryly, chasing her words with a sip of wine. “It’s not that I’m jealous,” she amends.

There’s a quirk at the corner of Hannibal’s mouth and she knows he doesn’t quite believe that last part. He runs his hands up and down her bare arms; it puts her in mind of gentling a horse. “There have been other lovers, yes. Quite a few. But none ever came within striking distance of my heart.”

“And I have?” she asks. Bedelia feels something inside her cracking open, like ice snapping during the spring thaw and every bit as dangerous. Him loving her almost frightens her as much as him _not_ loving her. It’s not rational, but the psychiatrist in her knows that human beings are rarely rational in matters of the heart; she never considered she would be one of them.

Hannibal simply nods, his warm chocolate eyes glassy. He plucks the wine glass from her hands and sets it on the counter, then spreads his arms wide and invites her to snuggle against his bear-like chest. She does, pressing her cheek against the firm outline of his pectorals. It had been so long since she’d had this with anyone—she’s not sure she ever has. A part of her basks in the safety, the care, while another half-expects him to fade away at the stroke of midnight.

He kisses her forehead, nuzzles her nose, until he comes to her lips, and she kisses him back with increasing abandon; it’s like being wakened from a thousand year sleep. Each kiss draws them closer, makes her blood burn hotter. They are like a crescendo building, threatening to peak in a crash of skin and tongue. The kitchen is soon forgotten—they wander to her bedroom in a fugue state of pheromones and endorphins.

The backs of her thighs brush against the edge of her bed as Hannibal begins to toy with the ends of her hair, curling the blonde strands around his fingertips. He hadn’t touched her hair all night, but she had caught him staring at it fondly throughout dinner. She’d been half-willing for him to start stroking it after her first mojito. He teases her locks now with a gentle building pressure that rises within her until she can do nothing but moan.

“Good,” he pronounces. He plunges his right hand in to her glossy curls up to the wrist, pressing the firm pads of his fingers against her occipital bone.

“Ohhhh,” Bedelia cries out unexpectedly, knees shaking. Her body responds to his touch in a way that is beyond her control, threatening a repeat performance of the last time they did this. The pleasure is so intense it triggers a kind of panic. “No…Hannibal…you can’t. Not again.”

He pauses; in his eyes she glimpses confusion, betrayal. His hand drops limply to his side. “Have I done something wrong?”

She turns from him, perches stiffly on the edge of the bed, folding her arms across her chest, an instinctual urge to armor herself, like a porcupine with its suit of quills. “No. No.”

He sits beside her. His hand hovers briefly over her shoulder, but he refrains from touching her. “Bedelia, I am not a psychiatrist, but I am a good reader of people. You seem conflicted.”

Bedelia swallows, a lump of emotion in her throat she can’t seem to push down. “I am.”

“May I ask why?”

He is so gentle with her, so patient. Her instinct would have her dismiss him, retreat behind her defenses and wall herself in like a princess in a tower. But that same instinct had led to many nights spent alone in this house, cold in her bed, with only her own thoughts for company. She tries to explain, her voice shaking and raspy; “The last time we were together…our first time…you took control.”

He nods, face impassive. “Did you dislike that?”

She laughs and it comes out hollow, rusty from disuse. “Clearly, we both know I did not.”

“I only meant to give you pleasure. What I thought you would enjoy. I’m sorry if that hurt you somehow.”

“You seemed to know more about what I would enjoy than I did. It frightens me a little,” Bedelia admits. “I’m the one who is sorry…I can’t help it...” Her voice trails off, unsure of what to say. “We all hold a certain sense of ourselves, within our own mind…who we think we are. When that sense of self is…challenged…it’s difficult.”

They are both silent for several seconds and Bedelia thinks perhaps she has finally succeeded in pushing him away. That he will find another lover, less conflicted and more accommodating, willing to let him make love to her in whatever fashion he would desire. Instead he simply takes her hand in his and squeezes it with great tenderness. “Well there is only one thing to be done about that,” he says, a twinkle of mischief in his eyes.

“Oh?” she asks, unsure of where this is leading.

“As you said, I was in control the last time. It is only fair that you take charge the second time around.” He leans back rakishly, with an open body posture that seems to say _I’m all yours_ , inviting her to ride him like his own motorcycle. “I think you’ll find I’m quite flexible in these matters.”

“I see,” she says. Bedelia feels her mouth go dry, confidence returning as she dreams of all the things she might do to this man and have him do to her.

“So?” he asks, expectant.

Bedelia rises from the bed. “Help me undress.”

Deftly and purposefully, he lifts the bulk of her hair out of the way, so that he may finish what he started with her zipper, drawing it down inch by inch in an agonizing strip tease. She slips the velvet dress off her shoulders, standing before him in nothing but her favorite crème and black lace underwear.

He strokes her nipple through the thin satin and lace of her bra, forcing her to bite back another moan. “This too?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says. “All of it.”

Hannibal licks his lips and she sees a muscle twinge in his jaw; it is very, _very_ satisfying to make him want her, to see him as visibly weak for her as she is for him. His warm hands slide up the smooth naked skin of her back and with one hand he unhooks her bra. Her breasts spring free, still high and firm, her nipples already aroused.

He looks, very appreciatively, but is too obedient to touch. Which arouses her all the more.

She sits on the bed and he makes elegant work of her stockings, drawing them from her in taut, tremulous wonder, the way a violinist might suspend a particularly rich note. He kisses the tips of her toes and the arches of her feet as he exposes them, and she does not rebuke him for this bit of initiative. At the last, he hooks two thumbs inside the lacy waistband of her underwear and draws the satin down over the curve of her hips, exposing the visibly damp curls of her sex.

He groans audibly, and his eyes smolder back at her, but he is content not to speak without being spoken to first. She likes having him look at her this way, kneeling at her feet, a pet tiger on an invisible leash she gets to hold for the span of an evening. She grabs him by the knot of his tie and draws him between her splayed legs. She knows what she wants and _he_ knows what she wants, but still it feels vulgar to announce it aloud.

Hannibal looks up at her hungrily through dark lashes. “I want to taste you.”

She nods, inching down toward the edge of the bed and wrapping her thighs about his head. This is not a delicacy they have sampled yet, and she must confess she is very eager to see if the reality of the act lives up to her fantasies. Hannibal knows what to do; he makes no beginners’ mistake of going straight for her clit. Instead he circles his target, kissing and tonguing her inner thighs, licking the swollen lips of her labia, breathing warm air against her sex until she unfolds for him as gracefully as a summer rose. At the moment when she is about to beg for more, he dives in.

It’s so _so_ good. She’d forgotten the gentleness of this act, the intimacy. His eyes lock with hers as he obediently licks her into oblivion and she’s never felt more cared for in her entire life. It’s no less erotic for being so tender. She runs her hands through his beautiful hair and gives the locks at the back of his head an experimental tug. He growls against her sex; his only response is to lick her faster and harder.

Bedelia feels her thighs begin to shake, a sign that her climax is close, but not inevitable. As delicious as this feels, she doesn’t want to come like this, not yet. She needs to have him inside her, to look in his eyes and feel his arms around her. She combs her fingers through his hair gently. “That’s enough for now.”

Obediently, he stops, and pulls away from her, eyes downcast in a submissive pose. He must be playing at it, surely, but damn…act or not it turns her on. He wasn’t kidding when he called himself _flexible_ ; it’s a night and day contrast from the man who took charge so effortlessly before.

She stands, tugging him to his feet by the length of his silk tie, pulling him in for a kiss. His lips are still red and glossy with _her_ and she tastes herself, dirty and delicious. She stands back, silently appraising him, high with the power he’s given her, to dress and undress him, to command and pose him as if he were her very own life-size Ken doll. Sly smile spreading across her lips, she unknots his tie, leaving it dangling around his neck, its silkiness brushing up against the hard, rosy peaks of her nipples. Oh the things they could do with that tie…but perhaps another night. With increasing ferocity, she untucks his shirt and begins popping the buttons open with her fingernail, one by one.

Bedelia slips her hands underneath his shirt so she can rest her palms against the firm, warm muscles of his chest. It’s her turn to rake her fingers through his salt and pepper pelt of chest hair and tease his nipples, smiling when her efforts earn her a breathy gasp. She feels like Eve in the Garden of Eden…she needs no devil to tempt her, not when there are so many pleasures to discover. Her fingers dance downward, tracing lines of taut skin, lower and lower till she meets the line of his belt and the hard, hot length straining for her touch.

And then suddenly, ever-patient Bedelia finds she can be patient no more.

She doesn’t bother with shirts or pants or socks—such things are trivial impediments to her true goal. With a flick of her wrist and a twist of her fingers, she frees the length of him from his trousers. With a push of her hands against his chest, he sits on the edge of the bed, as obediently as a dog healing for his mistress. A tear of wrapper, a slight twinge of delicious pain, and she is astride him, exactly where she belongs.

Their silence is broken as they both cry out together, overwhelmed by the pleasure that comes with their bodies reuniting, rejoining. She rises and falls, the conductor of their private orchestra, as he arches up to meet her, filling her deeply with every thrust. She tilts her breast toward his mouth and without needing to be told, he takes it, sucking and teasing and nuzzling as if his very life depended on it. She presses her hands against firm shoulders and she’s _so close_ …she could almost…but there’s something missing, something she wants.

It shames her how much she needs it, now that she’s had a taste of it. Is it still submission if she _demands_ it?

“Hannibal,” she gasps. “Pull my hair.”

If he is surprised at her request, he doesn’t show it. His hands move swift and sure to gather her hair in a thick ponytail which he loops tight around his fist. He looks at her, sleek as a jaguar, and without hesitation or remorse he pulls. Hard _._

“Yes,” says, cresting the peak. “Yes. _Oh._ Again.”

He pulls, harder and harder each time, sending her toward a spiral of pleasure and pain that brings on yet another orgasm before he spends. He holds on to her so tightly; her body blurs with his, two halves of a whole.

They lie intertwined and exhausted; she’s floating on a pink cloud of bliss so high she thinks she may never touch the ground again. Hannibal kisses her neck, nibbles at her earlobe, before capturing her mouth in the sweetest, richest kiss; she thinks she would like to taste nothing else again forever.

His lips spread wide against hers in a smile and he asks, “Still having second thoughts?”

“No,” she says, something warm and honeyed running through her veins. There’s no snapping ice around her heart anymore—it’s gone, burned away by the heat of their passion and the warmth of his love. “And I think I never will again.”

He kisses her palm. “Then I am so happy you gave us a second chance.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story is for all of those who kept asking for more Imago-verse bedannibal. This plot bunny just took hold and I felt inspired to write for them. They are a fun (and happy) couple and it is always fun to return to them.


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